


Arrow

by olndina



Series: Repair [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: M/M, Not a shovel talk, References to Bucky's spoilery past
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-13
Updated: 2014-06-13
Packaged: 2018-02-04 13:05:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1780162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olndina/pseuds/olndina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s already been Bucky again for two months, and, frankly, he’d thought this conversation would have happened with his standing on the business end of a drawn arrow.  He doesn’t immediately greet his visitor, though.  Instead, Bucky Barnes, lately the Winter Soldier, stirs cream into his coffee, taps his spoon on the mug’s edge, and takes the first and second decadent sips of the day before finally turning around to face Clint Barton.  “You know, pal, there’s a lot I miss from the ‘40s: dames in skirts and nylons, cigarettes that don’t give you cancer, dance halls so packed you can feel the band thump your heart in time to the music.  But, dear god, that coffeemaker almost makes the torture and brainwashing worth it.”<br/>“We’re joking about seventy years of terror and bloodshed now?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Arrow

**Author's Note:**

> Set some time post CATWS. Steve and Clint have been together for awhile now, and things were solid, until they weren't.
> 
> Still no beta. If you see a continuity error (in this series, not in actual MCU), PM so I can fix that shit. 
> 
> Concrit welcome.

He’s already been Bucky again for two months, and, frankly, he’d thought this conversation would have happened with his standing on the business end of a drawn arrow.  He doesn’t immediately greet his visitor, though.  Instead, Bucky Barnes, lately the Winter Soldier, stirs cream into his coffee, taps his spoon on the mug’s edge, and takes the first and second decadent sips of the day before finally turning around to face Clint Barton.  “You know, pal, there’s a lot I miss from the ‘40s: dames in skirts and nylons, cigarettes that don’t give you cancer, dance halls so packed you can feel the band thump your heart in time to the music. But, dear god, that coffeemaker almost makes the torture and brainwashing worth it.”

“We’re joking about seventy years of terror and bloodshed now?”

“I guess not.”  Bucky brings his mug to his lips again, and if he takes a longer sip than necessary, well, he’s always been an asshole.  And, true to form, he keeps drawing the silence out, even after he sets the cup on the counter behind him.  Eventually, though, after he’s taken in Barton’s blank face and tense shoulders, he lets out a breath and crosses his arms, slouching in on himself.  “This where you tell me to fuck off from your man or you’ll break my kneecaps, pal?  Because…”

“No.”

“…not here to…Wait.”Bucky takes a step forward, his arms dropping to his sides.  “No?”

“No. I’m not,”Clint squeezes his eyes shut and wipes his hand across his mouth. “I’m not, I’m, uh, Steve, he’s not…I can’t just…”

“Oh, you’re giving up on him.”  Bucky sees Clint clinch his jaw, but the other man doesn’t say anything. “Have you lost your damn mind?”  Barton stays quiet, but the look of absolute hopelessness is all the answer Bucky needs.  He fixes Barton with a look.  “You don’t give up on Steve Rogers, okay? You just fucking don’t, because the minute you do, that’s all the chance you’ll get because for some goddamned reason, out of everyone he’s met since the ice, he chose _you_ to be his partner.”

“I’m not you.”

“And thank Christ for that.  I’m no good for Steve.  I never was, okay?  Even back when he was about 95lbs soaking wet, I was never good enough for him. But, god, when Steve Rogers comes to you and hands you everything you’ve been missing in your damn life, you take it, pal, so, god forgive me, I held onto him for seventy goddamned years and he’s the reason that _I_ _’m_ out of the ice too.”

“You still love him.”

“Damn right I do.”

“He still loves you.”

Bucky glances at the door to the living room before fixing Barton with a look that has caused more than one hardened killer to shit himself. He stalks across the kitchen to the breakfast nook and stands in front of Barton.  With a snarl, he jerks his Henley over his head.  Barton doesn’t move once, not even when Bucky shoves the red star in his line of sight. “Do you know why I won’t let Stark give me a new arm? Do you know why I keep this fucking star there?  Do you know why I won’t let Banner devise a new integration system between the arm and my brain?”Bucky’s body shakes; the rotors in his arm whir.  “Do you?”  Barton finally meets his gaze, but doesn’t otherwise respond.  “It’s so I’ll never forget. This is a symbol of my sins, the people I’ve killed, the lives I’ve ruined. It fucking hurts all the time, but I live with that pain, not because I deserve to be punished, not to atone for what HYDRA and the Soviets made me do.  I keep it because If I don’t have that pain, if I for one minute forget that I’m not man enough for Steve Rogers, then I’m going to let myself have hope that I can be the man I once was, can be the Bucky I once was and maybe, just maybe, I’ll be worthy of Steve’s love. But I’m not.”He’s been Bucky Barnes again for two months, all mouth and attitude, but this right here, this confession, breaks him. There are tears wetting his cheeks. “I didn’t fight hard enough to come home.  They took my name, took my arm, but I gave them Steve. If I could have held onto him longer, kept him in all the places of my brain that they used to program the Winter Soldier, then maybe I really could have been worthy of him. But, this arm, this star, reminds me that I didn’t fight hard enough for Steve.  There’s something wrong with me if I’m able to be unmade, rewritten.”Bucky’s strength fails him and he sags. Barton helps him find the other chair. Barton walks across the room and retrieves Bucky’s forgotten cup of coffee.  After he’s set the cup on the table in front of Bucky, he hands Bucky’s shirt to him. The archer must have timed it to coincide with when Bucky’s pulling his shirt back of his head, but Bucky still catches Barton’s muttered words.

“God, I thought I was fucked up.”

Bucky’s head emerges from the neck of his shirt and he’s frozen for a moment, halfway back to being fully dressed again, incredulity clear on his face, and he fucking loses it.  Laughter shakes his body as he gives into mirth for the first time in what feels like a lifetime.  He chortles through his rejoinder.  “So, we’re joking about my crippling low self esteem and debilitating PTSD now?”

“Looks like.”  The grin that lights Barton’s face is fleeing, but it’s while he looks younger than his thirty-five years that Bucky thinks, even more fleetingly, that if things were different, he could like Barton, could be his friend. The happiness doesn’t last long, and Barton turns his head to stare at something to his right.  It’s then that Bucky sees the black portfolio on the end of the table. 

It’s a stupid question, he knows, but he still asks, “Those Steve’s?”  
  For answer, the other man reaches for the folio, his hands a gentle caress across the top. “Does Steve know you…”Barton darts a look at Bucky.  “Look, I don’t think you should, _I_ should –”

“When he woke up, Fury sent him to SHIELD’s psych department and, well, to say things went pretty well FUBAR with Doc Jenkins and his merry mentalists would be like saying Tasha is scary.  I think the longest one lasted five days.”He snorts, but Bucky doesn’t say anything.  “Anyway, the whole head-shrinking thing was pretty much a bust, but the one thing that Steve kept doing was his art therapy.”He slides them to Bucky.  Bucky moves his hands away from the table, as though burned. 

“Barton, if Steve wanted me to see these, he’d –”

“Look, I get it, okay?  Betrayal of trust, intensely personal, but goddammit, Barnes, just look at them, okay? Check the dates. You’ll figure it out.”

“Barton, I –”

“Barnes, just…”He slams his fist on the table, but because he’s Bucky and not the Winter Soldier, Bucky doesn’t react except to feel sympathy at the other man’s obvious pain.  Before he starts talking again, Barton takes a deep breath. “You said you gave Steve to the Red Room, to HYDRA, but you also said that Steve’s the one thing that brought you back.  You didn’t give up on him, and he never gave up on you.”When Bucky still doesn’t make a move to open the portfolio, Barton tears open the cover and pulls the top most one out, shoving it into Bucky’s hands.

It’s beautiful, and Bucky remembers that day, remembers, _“I had him on the ropes,”_ and, _“You_ _’re taking all the stupid with you.”_ More importantly, though, he remembers what happens after they leave that alley behind the movie theatre, remembers how he had come home from the Stark Expo and the disastrous double date and found Steve packing for Fort LeHigh.  He remembers holding Steve for the first time, making love to him. It's a perfect moment, a perfect memory, and Bucky hangs onto it when the memories and nightmares want to suck him down into a a black vortex.  Bucky traces the lines of Steve's face, so much rougher and less defined than Bucky's own, because of course Steve always spends more time on Bucky's features than his own. He chuckles, then continues following the lines as they play across the page, until he studies the left hand of the Bucky Barnes in the sketch.  It's barely there, but there nonetheless: a state-of-the-art metal hand. He flips the sketch over and finds the stylized "SGR," the date right underneath it: "April 19, 2012?" he looks at Barton.  "But, that's right after he - "

"That's the first picture of you he drew after waking up. He's drawn dozens, hundreds since then, and it never bothered me."  Barton stands up and walks to the glass door that leads out to the balcony. "Even when you woke up and were, you know, you again, it didn't bother me, because it was always my bed he crawled into these days.  I knew he loved you, hell probably loved you from the moment he saw you and you were trying to kill him because that's just Steve, but I know he also loves me. And, you know, it's not like Steve was stepping out on me, because the man can't tell a lie to save his life, even though you were right there.  Then, last night, I came home from the op a day early and I walk into our living room and Steve's sitting in the middle of the floor, all of your sketches all around him, and he's got one of them in his hands, pencil working furiously. He changed them, changed them all so that they're the Bucky of now."  Barton lifts his hands up to his eyes and wipes at them. "He was crying, man, and before I could sit down, hold him, he'd apologized and run out of the room, out of the apartment.  He's still not back." More than the tears that may or may not be on Barton's cheeks, the catch in Barton's voice tells Bucky that the other man is just barely hanging on, and it's that catch that makes Bucky want to speak up, but he doesn't because he promised.  Barton turns back around, fixes Bucky with a look. "Find him, Barnes, and bring him ho - to the Tower.  I'll have my stuff out by tonight, so you won't have to worry about that, but just find him."

Bucky nods his head, but doesn't otherwise acknowledge Barton as the other man takes his leave.  He pushes himself away from the table, and gathers up all of the sketches.  In the living room, he shoves all the furniture to the perimeter of the room so that he can arrange each sketch chronologically, not according to the dates Steve's written on their backs, but how the events actually unfolded.  When he hears the steps coming from his guest bedroom, Bucky is studying a sketch of the lab where Steve found him behind enemy lines.  From the way his eyes are rolled up in his head and his mouth is slightly opened, he imagines he can hear himself reciting name, rank, and serial number over and over in an effort to withstand the torture.  "That's a hell of a memory to capture on paper, Steve."

"I dreamed about it for so long, Bucky, I had to draw it. Drawing helps." Steve's standing by the couch, now, and without even looking at him, Bucky knows that he's drawing in on himself, trying to make himself smaller.

"Why didn't you tell me you ducked out on Clint last night? And since when do you run from anything?"

"Aw, Buck, I wasn't running from anything.  I just needed a little safety, and you've always made me safe." Steve's all the way in the living room now.  "'Sides, you coulda told him I was here."

"Yeah, I suppose I could have, but I figured you musta had a reason and it'd be a damn good one at that.  I'm just waiting for you to get your thumb outta your ass so you can tell me what the hell is going on." 

"I love you."

Bucky puts the sketch down and runs his hands through his hair, resisting the urge to grab a hank and pull.  "I know, you dumb bastard, and that kid loves you."

"Yes, he does, and so do you."  Bucky doesn't deny Steve's words, and, when their eyes meet, the choking sound that Steve sobs out reminds Bucky too much of Brooklyn winter nights with a wheezing Steve for whom Bucky would have given anything to be able to breathe for him, to fight for his breath the same way he fights the bullies bloody when Steve's too little to finish his own battles.  Steve must see all of this in Bucky's eyes, because he's across the room and pinning Bucky to the floor, on top of the sketches, and kissing him as though he will never get a chance to kiss him again. Because he's been Bucky again for two months, Bucky surrenders to the kisses the same way he did when they were twenty-four and Bucky was shipping out to London, Steve to some government experiment. He still doesn't deserve this too good man, maybe even deserves him less now than he did the first time Steve chose him, but there is no way Bucky's going to give this chance up.

Steve breaks from the kiss and he is crying.  This realization follows on the footsteps of the knowledge that Bucky himself is also crying.  Steve feels the same to Bucky as he did the night before they ziplined onto a moving train.  It sounds the same, Steve saying his name, as it did that night too.  "Bucky, I'm, I mean, I can't not - " Steve's breath hitches and reminds Bucky of all the times he'd come home to find Steve home nursing a busted lip or nose, frustration and anger still roiling off of him in tangible waves.  Steve lets go of Bucky and scrambles away from him, arousal obvious in the loose sleep pants he's wearing. Bucky drops his hands into his lap to ease his own arousal even if he does feel as though he'll wink out of existence if he doesn't put his lips back on Steve's, his hands on Steve's body, right this instance. 

"I'm sorry, Steve."  The other man's laugh is hysterical.

"What the hell are you sorry for?  I attacked you."

Bucky tightens his right hand around his left wrist, letting his fingernails catch on the plating.  "I didn't die, Steve.  I lived. I came back.  I'm Bucky again.  You were happy with Clint.  Now, it's all fucked. And that's on me." He starts to drop his graze, but Steve's hand, though gentle, is quick as it cups Bucky's jaw. The fresh tears in Steve's eyes startles another gasp out of Bucky, and Bucky wants nothing more than to kiss them away. "Steve -"

"Shut up one goddamn minute and tell me you aren't apologizing for being alive and being sane." Bucky stays quiet. "Well?" He might not be able to help the wince as Steve's grip tightens minutely, but that doesn't mean he can't force out a smirk as well.

"You told me to shut up.  Just following orders, Captain."

The groan of exasperation is far more welcome than the catch in Steve's voice. Broken as he is (contrary to whatever the hell Steve says) Bucky can't stop, can't stop the Steve's lips has on his own.

Both men wrap themselves in the other's arms, and Bucky is melting, melting into Steve, warm for the first time since the asset became Bucky. Steve wedges a thigh between Bucky's legs, and Bucky finds himself bearing down on that muscle, dragging himself up the other man's leg, rutting against the friction of his pants and the heat fro Steve's leg.  Bucky drops his hand down across Steve's pectorals, his abdomen, and twitches the shirt up enough to touch skin.  Steve gasps and pulls back suddenly and Bucky realizes that he's brushed his metal hand, always just below room temperature, across Steve's hot skin.  He's about to apologize, to put his hand back on clothing, but Steve grabs the metal fingers and shoves Bucky's hand down his pants. The sensors on the digits send all sorts of important information through Bucky's nerves, but the one thing that Bucky focuses on is the that Steve's girth and fullness are just as he remembered.  Bucky fists Steve's cock and the younger man bucks his hips once, twice, before Steve bites his lip and moans through his orgasm, Bucky rutting a handful more times in order to follow after him. 

Bucky loosens his grip, but doesn't let go of Steve, nor does he move his face away from where he's resting his forehead on Steve's both of them breathing heavily through their open mouths.  Bucky can feel the sketches sticking to his back, knows that some of them are ruined now that he's sweated on them.  He doesn't feel a bit bad about it though, not that. 

Steve's shoulders start shaking, and for a moment, Bucky thinks he's crying, but then Steve pushes himself off of Bucky and opens his mouth, absolutely guffawing and Bucky can't stop himself from giving into the mirth even if he wanted to. Steve's eyes go wide at Bucky's first chortle and when their gazes meet, Bucky's surprised at how tickled Steve really is. 

"Oh, hell, do you remember that..."  Bucky stops laughing, because, yeah, he knows exactly what Steve's about to say, about to remind him of the time they'd almost been caught by Howard Stark because Steve just _had_ to ride Bucky on top of the maps table after a briefing.  "And, and, remember Dernier's face when he saw that cut on your back from the model?"

Bucky slugs Steve in the arm, hard, causing Steve to laugh all the harder. "Button it, pal, I still have that damn scar."

"Oh, I know, Clint was there when you were in medical, and..."

Bucky feels his face go blank, smile still in place, but because Steve's known him since he was five and therefore knows Buckys' face like he knows his own so Bucky's not sure why he tried to hide the fact that he's upset and guilty about what he's just done to Steve, to Barton, because Steve's eyes have that look that tells Bucky he's breaking Steve's heart again. It lasts for maybe half a second before Steve's the one who slugs Bucky's shoulder.

"Ow!" It doesn't hurt, not really, but he needs the levity.  "What the hell, Rogers?"

"That was for distracting me, you lug." 

"Distracting _you_ , pal?" Bucky calls after Steve, who's running to the guest bedroom again.  "I seem to recall you being the one to attack me with your tongue in my throat and - "

Steve plops, honest to god plops, down and thrusts a folded up piece of paper into Bucky's hands.  Bucky turns the paper over in his hands, sees Steve's initials and the date. It's from this month. "Clint hasn't seen this one yet. It's a new one, finished it last week. I was looking at it when he came home. Didn't even realize it was in my hands until I was knocking on your door last night."  Steve's never been shy with his art, not where Bucky is concerned, used to say that art was the only place where he was big enough to match his mouth.  If Steve thought a sketch was good enough to show somebody, then it was goddamn perfect and should be hanging in a museum.  It's understandable, then, that Bucky's fingers are trembling while he unfolds the paper, because Steve's stopped meeting his eyes.

It's important to note that Bucky's been around the block a time or two, so he knows that there's more than one way to skin a cat just the same as there's more than one way to find love.  Steve, for all he's traveled the world and fucked Bucky every chance they got in every language they learned, though, is the last person in the world Bucky ever would have expected to propose a menage a trois, and even then, it's still almost _tame_ the way it's depicted on the page. 

Bucky is holding himself up by the headboard while his legs are wrapped around Barton's waist.  Bucky can see that he's close, what with Barton's hand obviously working his cock, and with his bottom lip caught in his teeth (Steve always said that watching Bucky bite that goddamn lip was like lighting fireworks, it got him so hot, so ready to explode), and Bucky cannot deny the beautiful play of muscles in Barton's arms and legs as he supports Bucky.  Steve, though not an active participant in the love-making (it's too tender, the way Bucky and Barton are looking at each other, to be anything but love-making), is exquisite.  He's lounging on his side, head propped in one hand, sheet covering him from the waist down. There's a tell-tale outline beneath the sheets that for all that he's hands-off, he's still very much enjoying the display in front of him.

It's exquisite, the best sketch Bucky's seen, but not because of two people on the bed in front of Steve.  It's a heartache deep beauty of a sketch because of the happiness Steve has afforded his own face.  Bucky has never seen Steve look that happy, either rendered in graphite and parchment, or in real life.  

"I-I know--it's probably dumb, right--but, I don't think I could choose if you asked me to."

"Jesus, Stevie."  Bucky drops the sketch and cups Steve's neck, forcing the other man to meet his gaze. "I love you, and, hell, I've been sharing Captain America with the world for a long time now, pal. If keeping you means I need to share Steve Rogers with a mouthy carnie, then, I'll take it, take all you'll give me."

"Really?" Bucky kisses Steve, then, and lets that be his answer before he sends Steve off to stop Barton from clearing out of their apartment and going into deep cover for twenty months (it's what Bucky'd have done). 

The living room floor is clean, all sketches tucked back into the portfolio, except for one.  Bucky can't stop himself from running his fingers over it, maybe smudging the pencil a little bit where he and Barton are joined, but Steve's face he leaves alone. Bucky's always been a little bit broken, but so too has Barton.  This little arrangement of theirs, whatever it is, won't fix them, not really, but maybe one day, life will imitate the art Steve's captured on page and they'll all three be that comfortable with one another, that in love with one another. Keeping Steve though, even if it's only for part of the time, is enough for now.

**Author's Note:**

> This was a rushed ending. Again, if it sees a beta (like with Carnage), I'll post the edited version.


End file.
